The Pure Oil Band

Edwin F. Goldman 1929

The Pure Oil Program is a bit obscure but it actually hosted Al Jolson's first radio appearance in 1929. So who was this band which launched such a legendary radio career? In the 1920s it seemed like every sponsor needed to have their own radio band. The book And now, a word from our sponsor, by Dorothy Hoober remarks on the 1920s convention: 

"Each program had its own musical group, and they were some times named after the sponsor of the program. Fran’s favorite was a banjo band called the Cliquot Club Eskimos. Cliquot Club was a brand of ginger ale. The Parkers also listened to the A & P Gypsies, the Pure Oil Band, and the Firestone Orchestra."

In the University of Iowa "Goldman Band Library" is a radio script from the Pure Oil Program as it aired on WJZ on November 11th 1925... almost 100 years ago. I'd love a scan but I don't have plans to go to Iowa this year. Short of getting that transcript, let's piece together the story.  

The first clue there is that the document is in the Goldman Band library. That would be Edwin Franko Goldman. (Sometimes spelled Franco) He was born in 1878. According to Boyd B. Perkins, "He first formed the New York Military Band in 1911 with the goal of employing the finest musicians and repertory possible."  That sentiment is echoed in a 1929 Union Banner article on the band:

"Every member of Mr. Goldman’s celebrated Pure Oil Band is a finish¬ ed solo artist on his particular instru¬ ment, and the ensemble has played together for a good many years. Many of the radio audience who have heard Mr. Goldman’s Band on con¬ cert tour, we believe will find in this weekly Saturday evening program the fulfillment of their desire for fine band music and will dial in any of the following stations Saturday evening: WJZ, WJAX, WBT, KDKA, WLW, WRVA, WSM, WMC, WBAL, WHAS, WJR, KYW, KWK, WREN, WEBC, KSTP, WTMJ, WHAM, WSB."

Previously Goldman had played trumpet in New York municipal bands which performed at the New York City parks and piers. Goldman felt that the musicianship was lacking in some of these groups. He gathered musicians he felt were the leading wind instrument players in New York City to discuss  forming a New York Military Band. After a number of private engagements, the new 40-member band began playing public shows on the Columbia University green in 1918. 

In 1923 construction forced their move from Columbia to the Mall in Central park. Starting in 1924 the Guggenheim family donated 76k to make the programs free to the public. The first show of that season attracted an estimated 30,000 people. That year they began broadcasts on WJZ and WGY. By 1925 WEAF was broadcasting them remotely and NBC began broadcasting them on their then fledgling network. They probably had 150 million listeners by 1928.

In 1929 the New York Times published an article quoted an unnamed NBC representative that the Goldman Band was "the victim of commercialism this season" Fewer program sponsors had signed off for the Summer season." there would not be three weekly concerts by the band, as it had been in 1928. Goldman still had a contract with WJZ with Pure Oil for a half hour on Tuesday nights, but he was retreating from radio. But WNYC did still broadcast their show from the park on Wednesday nights. It's clear that this incarnation of the band still broadcast as the Pure Oil band into November of 1929. 

Edwin's son, Richard became conductor in 1956 following his fathers death. The band also changed their name to the Guggenheim Band after their long time sponsor.  The live programs in the park continued until 1969 when they were moved to the Lincoln center for safety reasons. When the Guggenheim withdrew their funding the band name changed again to the Goldman Memorial Band.  The band finally broke up in 2005, now having no original members over private fund raising and a negotiating stalemate between the band's negotiating committee and the board of directors.  

Curt Peterson 1928

The NBC announcer for the program was Curt Peterson. He also did CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, Jones & Hare: the Interwoven pair, Collier's radio Hour, The Gillette Program, The Atwater-Kent Show, The Dutch Masters Minstrels. He was born in 1898 and other than a story about his bad handwriting, little is recorded about him.[SOURCE]  Peterson announced for Radio Mystery Theatre in 1975 when he would have been 77 years old. There are several other Curt Petersons, including the founder of Sabina records, and an engineer at KOVR to name a few. the disambiguation makes it difficult to track his career. But he does appear in the book Golden Throats and Silver Tongues. I did find a head shot from a 1928 radio mag. (above) 

That New York Times article seems to put an end date to this radio tale. But then I found some loose ends... It appears that in 1930 Pure Oil chose to sponsor a new band.  In the 1931 Chicago News daily Radio Station Directory [LINK] it lists Wayne King's Pure Oil Band on KYW. Those references start in 1930. [SOURCE]  The Encyclopedia of American Radio doesn't record an end to the program either. Strangely they call it a The Pure Oil Brass Band, no other attribution.  The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio makes a passing reference under Richard Himber on the Pure Oil Hour with Eddie Peabody but that was just in 1933. Himber went on to provide music for The Spartan Hour, The Studebaker Champions, Thirty Minutes In Hollywood, and Melody Puzzles into 1937.  In 1935 Pure Oil sponsored the Vincent Lopez orchestra, but I think the band name was effectively dead by 1933.

Outstanding Radio Features of 1935

I found this image online with no attribution but dated to January 12th, 1935. But I do recognize it as a column from the New York Daily News. I'm going to assume that date is real and extrapolate from there. This Radio Program section was published in this format from at least 1934 into 1937, that's almost 90 years ago. So lets dig into the arcane details.

TUESDAY (1/15/35)

CALL SIGN	Time	Owner
WOR	8:00 PM	Eddy Brown, Violinist
WHN	8:00 PM.	Amateur Hour
WJZ	8:30 PM	Lawrence Tibbett
WMCA	9:00 PM.	US Navy Symphonic Orchestra
WEAF	9:30 PM	Ed Wynn; Duchin Orchestra
WABC	9:30 PM	Jones Orchestra; Evan Evans Baritone
WEAF	10:00 PM.	Musical Comedy, "The Mikado" with John Barclay
WEAF	11:00 PM.	Christmas Carols
WJZ	12:00 MID	Rudy Vallee Orchestra

Eddy Brown only died in 1974 after a very long career. He was a child prodigy musician, who performed on many New York City area radio stations after immigrating to America from Italy at the age of 4 in 1899. He performed with many different symphonies, and lead the Eddy Brown String Quartet in the 1920s. He was music director of the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1930–37, then the music director of radio station WQXR from 1936 to 1942. This performance would have been while he was still at WQXR, and simultaneously president of the Chamber Music Soc. of America.

Lawrence Tibbett was an opera singer and recording artist. Originally from Bakersfield, California he studied music in New York starting in 1923 under Frank La Forge. The earliest radio appearance I found of his was in 1922 over KHJ. He sang leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1923 to 1950 with over 600 performances in that time. Tibbett  made his first recording for Victor in 1926 and his first Hollywood film in 1930, Rogue Song, for MGM. He appeared on many different radio programs: The Packard Show, Hit Parade, Chesterfield Presents, Ford Sunday Evening Hour, Atwater Kent Radio Hour, The Circle, The Voice of Firestone, and the live broadcasts at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1937 he co-founded AFRA and serving as it's president until 1953. I suspect this specific program is Lawrence Tibbett with Wilfred Pelletier's Orchestra and John B. Kennedy as commentator. 

 The Duchin Orchestra recorded literally hundreds of sides for Victor recordings, often with Lew Sherwood, vocalist. Their sides for the Texaco program were broadcast live on October 2nd 1934. Ed Wynne (also spelled Wynn) was also on the Texaco program back in 1932 in the Fire Chief series. [LINK]The American Bosch popularity poll vote him most popular comedian that year. 

Evan Evans should have a disambiguation asterisk. In addition to the judges, actors, writers, Welsh poets and footballers there was also an Evans Evans actress born in 1936. Evans Evans appears with the Barlwo Orchestra in multiple issues of Tempo dating back to 1933. A concert Program listing, Serious Music on the Columbia Broadcasting System notes 17 performances under the title "Melody Masterpeices." A 1939 advertisement for Julliard School of music lists Evan Evans in the voice staff. Each reference is short and nominally informative always writing out the name and the one word "baritone" except for the oldest one, The Musical Times published in 1899 which inexplicably says "tenor."

WEDNESDAY (1/16/35)

CALL SIGN	Time	Owner
WMCA & WNYC	2:00 PM	New York Civic Symphony and Orchestra.
WABC	3:00 PM	Kate Smith's Matinee, with broadcast from Berne Switzerland
WEAF	3:30 PM	Woman's Radio Review - American Indian Music
WEAF	7:00 PM	Pickens Sisters
WABC	7:30 PM	The O'Neills
WEAF	8:00 PM	Mary Pickford in "Trigger"
WJZ	8:30 PM	Lanny Ross
WABC	8:30 PM	Broadway Varieties
WJZ	9:00 PM	Warden Lewis E. Lawes; Sing Sing Band
WABC	9:00 PM	Nino Martini; Kostelanetz Orch; Chorus
WEAF	9:00 PM	Town Hall Tonight, with Fred Allen
WJZ	9:30 PM	John Charles Thomas
WABC	9:30 PM	Burns and Allen
WJZ	10:00 PM	Induction of Elsie Janis as NBC Announcer
WABC	10:00 PM	Byrd Expedition Broadcast - Christmas Program
WEAF	10:30 PM	One Man's Family
WABC	10:30 PM	Mary Eastman, Evan Evans, Howard Barlow Orch.
WJZ	11:00 PM	Coleman Orch.
WEAF	12:00 MID	George Olsen Orch. and Ethel Shutta
WABC	12:00 MID	Amateur Night in Harlem

I hardly need to discuss Kate Smith, especially since I did that previously [LINK].  But Woman's Radio Review is a much lesser known radio program. Claudine MacDonald was the program's host, a single photo caption [SOURCE] adds little detail from the Donna L. Halpern book Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting. 

“The Women’s Radio Review was almost like a magazine, featuring segments on music (sometimes written or performed by women artists), literature, art, travel, news… and no recipes. Macdonald was… opposed to the type of women’s show that talked to women as if they were stupid.”

The Picken's Sisters were really sisters. Grace, Jane, Helen and Patti were daughters of Monte and Patti Pickens. Grace was not a singer but their manager. Patti and Helen got married and dropped out of show biz early. But Jane Pickens Hoving was a popular singer on Broadway, radio and television for 20 years. She sang in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, then toured with Eddy Douchin's Orchestra. Her appearances on the American Melody Hour on CBS radio led to her own radio program: the Jane Pickens Show on NBC.

The O'Neills was a radio soap opera . The radio iteration of the show aired for a decade in a 15-minute format. First on Mutual, CBS and then NBC from 1934 to 1943, later a TV series from 1949 to 1950. Quick synopsis: An elderly widow "Mother O'Neil" played by Kate McComb has two married children and two adopted children. Mother O'Neil is sage and wise, as is her platonic companion Morris Levy played by Jack Rubin. The kids are all non-stop drama as the words soap opera implied.

Lanny Ross born Lancelot Patrick Ross, was another singer from the Packard show. In the 1937 season Fred Astaire left, and they wrapped up those episodes with under the title Mardi Gras, with Ross as the singer and Walter O'Keefe as comedian, but still sponsored by Packard. His first radio gig was in 1928 earning him the title "the troubadour of the moon" according to the Historical Dictionary of Old Time Radio by Robert C. Reinehr. But this is probably not quite right. (The book Paul Whiteman: Pioneer in American Music by Don Rayno reports that same title describing Jimmy Brierly for a program he did on WAAT prior to 1933. A 1930 issue of The Herald and review newspaper tells me that "The Troubador of the Moon" program may be heard over WWJ, WSAL WHO. KSTP or WTAM... that program starred Ross so I'm going to disregard Brierlyfor the moment.  Ross career did start in 1928, but singing for Yale Glee Club's Jeddo Highlanders on NBC. He performed on Show Boat until 1937, and his own show, ''Lanny Ross and His Log Cabin Orchestra.'' before going into film. 

Warden Lewis E. Lawes publicity photo 1935

 Lewis E. Lawes (pictured above) was an actual prison warden, that's a title not a proper name. The Sing Sing Band is a reference to Sing Sing Prison, not vocalists. But Lawes did make some radio appearances. He was in The Glass Key episode of the Campbell Playhouse in 1939, and on Information Please he appeared with Boris Karloff in 1941.  He was the narrator for "Behind Prison Bars", which ran on WJZ from 1933-1939.  Later he was the subject of The Crime Cases Of Warden Lawes, a set of dramatized stories from Lawes' Sing Sing files on Mutual-Radio 1946-1947. He did record one record for Victor in 1932, it's more of the above. [SOURCE] It's hard to describe his brief but intense popularity, he wrote a few books and appeared in everything from radio to the cover of Time magazine, to comic books.

John Charles Thomas was an American opera singer from Pennsylvania. He made his first recordings for Vocalion in 1920, then RCA Victor in 1931. This led to regular appearances on radio including Five-Star Theater in 1932-33 with the Joseph Bonime Orchestra, the Vince Radio Program 1934–36, the Ford, General Motors and The Magic Key of RCA shows 1937–40, the Coca-Cola show from 1940–41 and the Westinghouse Radio Program in 1943-46. 

Elsie Janis was born Elsie Bierbower, in 1889. She was an actress, singer and eventually a radio announcer. most sources state that in 1934, Janis became the first female announcer on the NBC radio network. The December 19, 1934 issue of Radio World published the below article. Apparently NBC had an official first broadcast on January 16th.

Ethel Shutta and the Olsen orchestra air back to back which isn't' surprising. Shutta married band leader George Olsen in 1926, and the couple began touring together. They appeared on the Jack Benny Canada Dry Radio Show, which debuted in 1932 on NBC radio, and apparently together on WEAF. They divorced in 1939. Her career was mostly spent on Broadway but she did do the Nestle Chocolateers program in 1933. 

My favorite program on this list is Amateur Night in Harlem. This was broadcast live from The Apollo Theater. This is where the tough judgement of that local crowd was built. Great artists won real applause, but poor performances were met with jeers, the audience would boo and hiss. [SOURCE] I've written about this program before but there is so much to be said. [LINK]

Radio King Kong

I really don't care for Leonard Maltin. He's a movie guy, when he moonlights in radio he's out of his element. We can discuss his syndicated radio program, "Leonard Maltin on Video" some other night. But 4 days' ago he wrote up an update on a cold case in Radioland that was actually broken by Martin Grams Jr. [SOURCE] It was news to me. It's about the 15-part radio serialization of King Kong from 1933:

"The adaptation was handled by William S. Rainey, who was hired to adapt the screenplay and/or novelization into 16 chapters, each running 15 minutes in length. For the most part, Rainey remained faithful to the material...  Alois Havrilla, the director of the serial, was an accomplished radio announcer in his own right and it appears he also doubled for roles of natives, sailors and spectators."

The King Kong character was conceived and created by filmmaker Merian C. Cooper and script writer R.H. Edgar Wallace. Wallace wrote the initial 110-page draft for King Kong in about five weeks, from late December 1931 to January 1932 under the working title "The Beast." (Coopers input was mostly to steer Wallace so he could re-use existing RKO footage.) But then Wallace died of pneumonia in February of 1932.  Ruth Rose then developed the script from Wallace's rough draft with input from Cooper and co-director Ernest Schoedsack. Script-writer James Ashmore Creelman was brought into "tidy up." But that's not the whole story.

In December of 1932, the story was "novelized" by Delos W. Lovelace and published by Grosset and Dunlap. In October 1933, Cinema Weekly published the short story "King Kong", credited to Edgar Wallace and Draycott Montagu Dell. Walter Ripperger wrote a two-part serialization of the tale for Mystery magazine in March of the same year. All of this was before or concurrent with the screenings of the feature film. So it comes as no surprise that RKO might use radio as further promotion for that movie.

No surviving recordings are known to exist. (That one you found on Archive.org is from a 1963 kids record.) However a collector has unearthed originals of all 15 radio scripts. Originally planned for 16 broadcasts, a major earthquake pre-empted one episode leading to a major rewrite combining parts of episodes 5 and 6. In early screenings the audio was broadcast over WEAF,  WJZ, and the KECA. The only original audio that is known to exist is a 7 minute promo for the RKO film.

The Planters Pickers

At first, all I found was a single program announcement in an issue of the The Evening Independent newspaper dating to November 19th 1929.

 "Southern melodies, talking picture theme songs and negro spirituals will be blended by Billy Artz's Orchestra and the Hallelujah Singers, a negro male quartet, in the Planters Pickers program to be heard over the NBC system tonight at 10 o'clock from WEAF."

An issue of the Reading Eagle newspaper revealed that the program debuted on WEAF on October 25th that year. Even that first episode was featuring the Billy Artz's Orchestra and the Hallelujah Singers. Those two groups together were the "Planters Pickers."  The same announcement for the 30-minute program was carried by The Evening Independent newspaper out of St. Petersburg, FL. I also found an issue of the Bradford Era newspaper in listing a 7:00 PM performance on 1390 WHK-AM. At that time, the station was a member of the NBC network... and this was a syndicated program. The show either had moved to 10:00 PM on Fridays or it's a misprint.


Under the name Billy Artz Orchestra, the group cut at least 2 sides that were pressed on Oriole records the cut at few others on Banner, Perfect and Romeo. Later he led the strangely named Henry and George Orchestra. That was his recording career in a nutshell from 1929 to 1931. The Planters Picker just had the one season on NBC in the Fall of 1929. The Billy Artz Orchestra later ended up as the studio band for a few short-lived programs:  The Royal Vagabonds in 1932, the Bob Burns show in 1941, on WABC-AM solo in 1942, and house band on "Blondie," a radio sitcom based on the comic strip which aired in 1946.

Unfortunately I have no information on the Hallelujah Singers quartet. The name was used by different black singing groups going back to at least 1875. It could very well be members of a known group. The Hallelujah Quartet for example was a gospel group of similar description who performed on a number of radio stations around 1929-1931. It may have been them.

Dinner Date at 2XAF

Back in the 1920s WGY-AM in Schenectady, NY also operated a shortwave station with the call sign
2XAF. The WGY broadcast facilities were nestled right at the big General Electric plant in town. But they were also doing interesting experiential short wave work was being done at a 52 acre "laboratory" in South Schenectady, NY. at that location multiple shortwave stations broadcast to the word... I'll list just a few.

2XAF - General Electric
2XAD - Ship Owners Radio Service
2XAW - Ship Owners Radio Service
2XAC - Ship Owners Radio Service
2XK   - L.M. Cockaday

While today shortwave is the kooky medium of elderly radio geeks, in the 1920s shortwave events could make the print news....and in that era short wave radio really made a go at it. They held numerous press events exploiting each for the maximum coverage possible. They were trying to find a foothold with some popular audience for the medium. Looking back we now know that in the U.S. this was an abject failure.

Notable among these was the first dinner party broadcast on the radio. As dinner parties go it sounds a bit choreographed and uptight.It was held on April 20th, 1927 at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, NY. It was broadcast by WEAF, and picked up by 2XAF for re-broadcast around the world.  The toast master George Edgar Vincent President of the Rockefeller Foundation, and guest Dr. James Rowland Angell the president of Yale University spent much of the time trying to raise money for yale. Their goal was 20 million dollars. No contemporary references indicate if they reached that goal but it's doubtful. While WEAF had a big coverage area, the  program was heard from London to Tokyo to Honolulu courtesy of 2XAF.

 Only a month later 2XAF appeared in the news again. In April they broadcast congratulations to Admiral Byrd on his first visit to the North Pole. In September the Dempsy v. Tunney boxing match was broadcast and heard around the globe. In 1928 they also attempted a number of image broadcasts testing early TV standards. They appeared repeatedly in magazines like Boy's Life into at least 1930.

Hire's Harvesters

Nat Shilkret had so many bands it's like he had multiple personalities. A native New Yorker, Naftule Schüldkraut was born in 1889 when New York was more hardcore than it looked in the movie Gangs of New York. A child prodigy on clarinet, he was touring with the New York Boys' Orchestra before 1900. Before 1915 he'd already played with the New York Symphony Orchestra, the Russian Symphony Orchestra, Victor Herbert's Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra, Arnold Volpe's Orchestra, Sousa's Grand Concert Band, Arthur Pryor's Band, and the Edwin Franko Goldman Band. He hadn't gotten to radio because it didn't exist yet.

His move toward commercial recording and performing began in 1915.  That year he was hired by the Foreign Department of the Victor Talking Machine Company. In 1926 he became  director of light music. He went on to make thousands of recordings for Victor. It was in this window he went into radio. He became a conductor for The Eveready Hour on WEAF-AM. The program was sponsored by the National carbon Company which owned Eveready Battery.  the host of the program was banjoist Wendell Hall. The program was dreamed up by George Furness at National carbon who in a way was it's producer.

In that era WEAF founded an early network and by link up over Bell telephone lines networked to WRG in Buffalo and WJAR in Providence hugely increasing their audience.  In 1925 Nat played with his Victor Salon Orchestra on the program, and by 1926 moonlighting as "Hire's Harvesters," for Hire's Root Beer. Now that was an obscure radio tidbit. In his book The Mighty Music Box, author Thomas A. DeLong called it a "less memorable program." NBC bought ads in Colliers magazine in 1926 to plug the new program and listed off their early NBC affiliates WEAF in New York WSAI in Cincinnati, WCAE Pittsburgh etc:

"Every Thursday, at 7:1 5, Eastern Standard Time, let Hires Harvesters carry you to Lands of Romance where the ingredients for Hires are gathered."

Hires was never very active in radio sponsorship. In radioland they spent on Horace Heidt and little else. In 1947 the sponsored the program "Here's To You" on CBS. The John Dunning opus On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio mentioned Hires only one time. The Harrison Summers book Thirty-Year History of Programs Carried on National Radio Networks in the U.S. 1926-1956 lists the NBC program active as in 1926 and 1927. But the program may go back earlier.  Even the Everready Hour was erratic in length and times in that pioneering era. I'll cite the very few known newspaper references below:

Lewiston Evening Journal - April 15th, 1926  "WEAF 8:15pm Hires Harvesters New England Program"
The Daily Argus - February 18th, 1926 "WEAF 8:15pm Hires Harvesters"
Wallace's Farmer - February 25th, 1927 "WCCO 7:30pm Hires Harvesters"

Twice the Evening Independent newspaper of St. Petersburg lists off the show's program in great detail. I note that Shilkret wrote half the songs of each weekly program. The March 21st, 1927 issue describes a program with a "South American theme" theme starting with Valparaiso and ending at Rio De Janeiro. It lists the programs playlist and songwriter credits:
     Harvesters March - Shilkret 
     Fate - Shilkret
     Students's Fado, South American Air Chamarita. Fado Portugese
     Valse des Feuilles - Markoff
     El Choclo - Villodo
     O Madame - Markoff

The March 28th, 1927 issue describes a program with a "Down East theme" focusing on Maine and New England. But it also list the programs playlist and songwriter credits:
    Harvesters March - Shilkret
    Snappy Weather - Shilkret
    Mellis Dunham Tunes - (Traditional)
    Sass - Shilkret
    Dream On - Herbert
    Long, long Ago - Bayley
    Gleaming Shadows - MacDowell
    Dizzy Fingers - Confrey

The Kokomo Tribute actually gives them some credit on the Blue Network on June 2nd 1927: 

"The Hires Harvesters who recently became a regular Network feature will be heard in their second performance in a program broadcast through WJZ and the Blue network at 8 O'clock At this time the Hires Harvesters will present a program of Spanish numbers Including some by Waldteufel, Malvernen, Mowsey and Shilkret The complete program for this broadcast is as follows Harvesters March, Tango De Malvernen, Vocal-Shilkret, La Rubito Guitarre Moskowski, Spanish Shepherds, Moorish Dance, El J,  Sweet Shilkret.  This program will be broadcast by WJZ, WBZ WBZA, KDKA, KYW, WBAL, WJR, WHAS, WSB, WSM, WMC"

An issue of the Reading Times lists it off more concisely on June 9th, 1927. "The next concert by the Hires Harvesters, to be broadcast at 8.30 o'clock will be heard through WJZ. India will be visited in this broadcast, with "The Song of India," "Hindu Seene," "Oriental," "Snake ' Charger" and other selections reminiscent of India and the Near East. Among other features will be a cello solo "Melodie Exotique."the format of the odd little program becomes clear and the musical challenge for Shilkret as well. It's disappearance over that summer seems unsurprising.

Trade and Mark

 It wasn't in all their advertisements but it was on most of them. It was more of a layout or design error than anything. Smith brothers cough drops were first made by their father, James Smith in 1852. The boys inherited the business in 1866. The Smith brothers real names were William and Andrew.  Andrew Smith died in 1895, and William continued as company president until he died in 1913. But under their heads on their packages were the words "Trade" and "Mark."  This was only intended to indicate that the Smith Brothers brand was trade marked. Something that today we'd indicated with a Unicode U+2122 character ™.  But the design stuck, and even after death, they are still known incorrectly by those names.

From 1925-1934, the Smith Brothers company decided to exploit those branded and bearded faces and sponsor a radio program on WEAF-AM. Harold "Scrappy" Lambert and Billy Hillpot played the parts of Trade and Mark Smith, the fictional personas of the real Smith brothers. The book Sold On Radio by Jim Cox list Smith Bros under it's advertiser index selling their cough drops on the radio with just the one program.  Radio was new to Smith Bros, but it was just as new to Scrappy and Billy.

Scrappy Lambert and Billy Hillpot actually met in college at cheerleaders at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.  Scrappy was born in 1901, and while Hillpot's date of birth is unknown, he graduated in 1926 so he might have been just a tad younger than Scrappy.  Regardless they were both in their early 20s at best and by all reports it was a gig they got right out of college.

Scrappy actually sang for a number of groups in that era, and under a number of pseudonyms: He used other names besides his own: Burt Lorin, Glen Burt, Buddy Blue, William Brown, Harold Clarke, and probably others. Hillpot also shows up on a number of recordings including with Nat Shilkret, Ben Bernie, and Jack Pettis. More here.


In 1943, MCA offered Lambert an office job managing various artists and productions for radio. The year before, Hillpot left the NBC Artists Bureau. Shortly thereafter he got an even bigger job as a 'radio executive' for OCIAA  (formerly OCCCRBAR) but aka (The Office of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs.) It was a WWII propaganda department. Both had gotten out of singing by the late 1930s. Lambert stayed at MCA until 1948 when he went solo as a talent. True to the spooks he worked with, Billy Hillpot more-or-less vanishes at OCCIA. An August 1942 issue of Broadcasting names him as Director of their New York Office.  The group was renamed (OIAA) the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) in 1945... but Hillpot has already vanished.

The A&P Gypsies

Harry Horlick's salon orchestra "The A&P Gypsies" were sponsored by the A&P grocery chain. Harry had a very unfortunate surname but he didn't let it hold him back. But first a bit about another name: A&P. It's hard to think of a grocery store today having the mojo to sponsor radio programming but A&P began as The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company and with a name like that you knwo they thought highly of themselves and with good cause. 

A&P began in 1859 as a small chain of coffee and tea shops in new york. By the turn of the century they were the first national grocery chain in America with over 200 stores. It grew 8 fold over the next 15 years to 1,600 stores. By 1930 it was the world's largest retailer. It's decline began in the 1950s and over the next half century bankruptcies and buyouts left it what it is today.

But let's get back to Mr. Horlick. Harry was born in 1896 in Russia and was a prisoner of war in WWI. Family in the US helped him emigrate in the 1920s. And by 1923 his six-piece ensemble was playing on WEAF-AM in New York city. It was there he was seen by an "unnamed executive" from A&P. By March of 1924 they were apart of their sponsored broadcasts on Monday nights.

Today the word Gypsy is the next worst-thing to a racial slur. Ostensibly Harry had studied gypsy folk music while traveling with gypsy bands in Istanbul. it's hard to corroborate knowing he was imprisoned after 1914 and in the US by around 1921 at the age of 25. When that Turkish tour happened... I cannot say.

the A&P Gypsies performed together in 1923 through 1936 and subsequently cut a number of sides for Decca and Brunswick.
Horlick died in July of 1970.

WJY and WJZ: Fraternal Twins

First of all, WJY technically precedes WJZ. It's incongruous and that's because the first time the WJY calls  were used for only one day. RCA used them on July 2nd, 1921 for the Dempsey Carpentier fight. The transmitter, which had been borrowed from GE overheated in under 4 hours and crapped out. The canonical radio history text Airwaves of New York refers to this event as radio "pre-history."  But history it is indeed.


WJZ came next, a mere 90 days later, signing on October 1st 1921 at 833 kHz. It was the first officially licensed station in New York, though Westinghouse had already established WBZ in Boston and KDKA in Pittsburgh beforehand. Just 4 days later, WJZ aired the 1921 Worlds series played between the Giants and the Yankees. In other words they came out pretty strong.

In May of 1923, Westinghouse sold WJZ to RCA. On May 14th RCA immediately transferred the station from Newark, NY to New York City. Just one day later, time they debuted WJY on 740 AM.  Both stations operated out of operated from a pair of studio on the 6th floor of Aeolian Hall at 29 West 42nd St. Their transmitters fed an identical pair of antennas on the roof.

The original idea was that WJY was to feature more high brown programming and WJZ would feature popular music. But that's not what happened.  WJZ operated 24/7 (mostly) and WJY had to share time with WOR. And while they were sometimes on air at the same time, it confused listeners and WJY became a depository for the dregs that didn't get airtime on WJZ. It left them with an unavoidable second-class status beside the real super-station.

At the end of 1925 WJZ started using their new 50k watt transmitter from a new site in Bounb Brook, NJ. interference complaints left them at reduced power for another 10 years but the transition had begun. In July AT&T transferred ownership of WEAF to RCA as well leaving WJY the runt of the litter. That month it went off air. RCA continued to hold the license, but in 1927 they opted not to renew it. That year WEAF and WJZ moved to 711 Fifth Avenue and the national Broadcasting company was all under one roof. It's where they stayed until a 1942 rule-making by the FCC decided that no broadcaster could own more than one station in a market... time marches on.

Sisters of the Skillet

On CBS Ed East and Ralph Dumke were called the Quality Twins. But that was only in 1937 and 1938.  Before that they were players in the Charlie Davis Orchestra. But earlier they were also known as the Sisters of the Skillet, from a routine they did. They were vaudevillians who had toured the Keith- Orpheum circuit and made the jump to radio like many others. They're easily listed among other famous Hoosiers

They started out on WGN-AM in 1928 where their Sisters of the Skillet routine was popular. (some sources put their start as early as 1920) It was a parody of home maker programs. The schtick worked like this. Ed and Ralph would get an audience of real house wives (or at least cronies playing real housewives) then instead of actual useful advice they'd dispense absurd and nonsensical advice. It went over so well they got to guest on the Rudy Valee program.

In the Summers when regular fare often took a hiatus they were often tagged for a fill-in season. They appeared on both NBC Blue, CBS. They were sponsored sometimes by Knox gelatin, Lava soap, Crisco, Armour, and Kellogg cereals among others. They did shows in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening until they ended their run as a duo in 1938.

After the split Ed East found work as an announcer on the radio quiz show in 1938 on a quiz show called "Askit Basket." He followed that up hosing "Name It And It's Yours" on NBC. In 1939 he and his wife Polly started a variety morning program on WJZ, "Breakfast in Bedlam." It later called "Ladies Be Seated."  There are a couple known recordings of this program cataloged here. The program continued in various morning time slots until 1945.

Across town Ed's former partner Ralph played minor characters in a number of dramas, and eventually landed on Studio X at WEAF-AM. They were both in morning slots by 1941 turning the former partners into competitors. Ralph really moved from there into film. He appeared in 35 films as a supporting actor from 1948 to 1961. East also appeared in 3 films between 1949 and 1951.  By then Dumke was already appearing on TV programs like I Love Lucy.

Hollywood Walk of Fame: M - R

You may have noticed that at least a dozen names on this list have had no business being on the list: side kicks, spouses, extended family, former landlords... etc. There seems to have been a gravitational pull to some popular shows where a large number of the regulars got Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Although fame is distinctly relative, and not always enduring... some of these are not like the others.


Gordon MacRae - Coming from Broadway he made an odd pick for host of  The Railroad Hour. It ran from from 1948 until 1954 starting on ABC and moving to NBC in 1949. In that some era, he guested on the Bell telephone hour. the rest of his career was in film.

Guy Madison - From 1951 to 1954 he played Wild Bill Hickok on the Mutual Network. He later played the same character on a television series.

Ted Malone - He began his radio work as an announcing and playing ukulele KMBC,  In 1929. His early work on air even included poetry readings, especially his program "Between the Bookends" and "Pilgrimage of Poetry." He later branched out into variety shows and quiz shows like Yankee Doodle Quiz in 1943.

Hal March - One half of the comedy duo Sweeny and March on the program of the same name on CBS 1946 to 1948, revived on NBC in 1951.  He is most famous for the quiz show scandal that took down The $64,000 Question which he hosted.

Mark & Brian -   Also known as Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps. They came to Los Angeles in 1987, and debuted a morning show at KLOS-FM. They started working together at WAPI in Birmingham. they retired the show just this year after a 25 year reign.

Mary Martin - She sang everywhere: The Bing Crosby Show, Good news in 1938, Stage Door Canteen, Theater USA, CBS Mystery Theater and others. She never had a starring role in radio, her recording career was huge however and you can't separate the two.

Tony Martin - He was a regularly featured vocalist on the Burns and Allen show 1936 - 1937. In 19398 and 1939 he showed up on "Tune Up Time" on CBS, then the "Carnation Contented Hour" 1948 - 1951. His recording career was much more significant however.

Groucho Marx - Famous now for his black and white film appearances he also spent time in radio. NBC Blue carried the series "Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel" in 1932 and Blue Ribbon town int eh 1940s.  But Groucho was best known on radio as host of "You Bet Your Life" which ran on ABC radio in 1947 and 1949 before moving to TV.

Mary Margaret McBride - See previous post here. 

Clem McCarthy - A sportscaster who called boxing, horse racing and whatever else came up. His best known  for the often re-run clip of his announcing on NBC the 1938 Joe Louis-Max Schmeling rematch.He did some bit parts too including the Eddie Bracken show in 1945.

Smilin' Ed McConnell - He started singing on CBS in 1932 as the Sunshine Melody Man doing gospel numbers.  His children's show, Smilin' Ed's Gang launched in 1944 ran through 1953 on NBC. After the show moved to TV he was replaced be a less fat host.

Joel McCrea - Famous for his movie roles, his biggest radio role was as Jayce Pearson on the radio Tales of the Texas Rangers. It ran 1950 to 1952. When it was revamped for TV he didn't get cast.

Hattie McDaniel - See previous post here.

Graham McNamee - Starting in radio in 1923 his first jobs of any note were in sports writing and announcing on WEAF. He did the play-by-play announcing for the 1926 World Series and went on to announce for the Rose Bowl and championship boxing. In the 1930s he was an announcer for an announcer on Rudy Vallee, Ed Wynn's and others. 

Don McNeill - See previous post here.

James Melton - In 1927 he began singing on radio with a cabaret group. Though he never had his own program , he was a regular performer. He was on The Firestone Hour in 1933, on Ward's Family Theater in 1935, The Sealtest Sunday Night Party (1936), The Palmolive Beauty Box Theater (1937), The Song Shop (1938), the Bell Telephone Hour (1940), Texaco Star Theater (1944) and Harvest of Stars in1945.

Bob Miller - He is a sports announcer doing  play-by-play for the Los Angeles Kings since 1972 on XTRA-AM later moving to KTLK.  Miller moved over to TV announcing for the games in 1990 when the Kings stopped simulcasting  games on TV and radio. He was inducted into the Hockey hall of fame in 2000.
*Corrections from KoHoSo

Ken Minyard & Robert Arthur  - This morning team started their run on KABC-AM in 19723 and continued until 1990 when Artur retired. Minyard tried other co-hosts but was cancelled in 1998. He tried father & song show on KRLA for a year-and-a-half then returned to KABC in 2001 and retired in 2005.

Everett Mitchell - See previous post here.

Vaughn Monroe - This big band leader hosted the Camel Caravan radio program starting in 1946 and running through 1953, seven straight years. He also guested on a number of other programs. His radio resume is a little thin actually.

Garry Moore - He started out in 1937, at WBAL-AM as an announcer. His first network gig was NBC Blue Network's Club Matinee, 1939-43. He got shared billing on the Jimmy Durante-Garry Moore Show, from 1943-48 then did  a year as the Garry Moore Show which crossed over to TV.

Frank Morgan - Coming from a family of radio performers, he is the 2nd most famous after his own niece. The Frank Morgan Show ran on NBC 1944-1945 followed by the Maxwell House Coffee Hour. But he also played Daddy Higgins, father to the Franny Brice character Baby Snooks.

Henry Morgan - He started as an errand boy at WMCA in 1932, after several odd jobs, in 1940, he was offered a daily 15-minute series "Meet Mr. Morgan" on Mutual which mixed ad lib comedy with zany records. Most famous for fighting with his sponsors he also erroneously made the communist black list in the 1950s. He recovered and later hosted TV quiz shows.

Robert W. Morgan - He started out on College station WWST in Wooster Ohio in 1955. He put in time at KACY, KTEE, KOMY, KMBY, KROY, KMAK, KEWB, KHJ.where he was a 'Boss Jock'. He was a Los Angeles institution who only retired in 1970.

Carlton E. Morse - He got a job script writing at KGO-AM  which went very well indeed. His work was mostly action and mystery but he also did some soap operas. his series "I Love a Mystery" ran from 1939 to 1942 on the NBC Blue Network and was revived by Mutual from 1949 through 1953.

Ken Murray - He was the first host  of "Queen for a Day", on the Mutual network from 1945 to 1957. It was a show that was part audience response and part reality programming. It crossed over to TV and only ended when Murray had a heart attack in 1964.

Edward R. Murrow - An extraordinarily famous and respected journalist, his radio career literally jumped directly from covering a children's chorus to covering Nazi aggression in 1938. He became a regular on the nascent "World News Roundup" where he remained thru 1947. Murrow later hosted "This I Believe" which was both erudite and esoteric.

Conrad Nagel - On CBS from 1937 to 1947 he hosted and directed the radio program Silver Theater. Overlapping that he also hosted the Radio Readers Digest from 1942 to 1945. He also was the announcer for Alec Templeton Time in 1939.

John Nesbitt - He wrote and announced for "Headlines of the Past" in 1937. Which grew into a new program " The Passing Parade" which ran until 1951 on NBC.  He also did bits under that title as segments on the Westinghouse Program.

Chuck Niles - Sometimes billed as the only jazz disc jockey on the walk of fame. Actually there are two counting him and Dave Garroway. He rose to fame on  KNOB-FM around 1957 and crossed the street to KBCA in 1965. Starting in 1990 he DJ'd on the infamous KLON-FM, (now KKJZ) he died in 2004.

Ken Niles - A radio announcer and producer at Don Lee Networks, even working on Louella Parsons' Hollywood Hotel show. He did a series of radio dramas called ''Theater of the Mind'' in 1928 and also announced for Camel Caravan, the "Bing Crosby Show'' and ''The Abbott and Costello Show.''

Wendell Niles - He was an announcer on several successful shows: The Bob Hope Show, The Burns & Allen Show, The Milton Berle Show and The Chase and Sanborn Hour. He was also in a couple bad films with a guy named Ronald Regan

Walter O'Keefe - He hosted The Walter O'Keefe Show from 1928 to1937, and then in 1938 with "Battle of the Sexes." Later quiz shows like "Double or Nothing," in the 1940s brought him to even greater national prominence.

Gary Owens - He became a big-time TV announcer but started out on a podunk station, KORN-AM. He moved to KMA in 1956, then KROY in 1959 and finally KEWB. He moved to sister station KFWB in 1951 and then KMPC in 1962 where he stayed for 20 years.

Ozzie Ozzie & Harriet Nelson - They started doing their routine on on Red Skelton's radio show, then in 1944 they got their own radio series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.It moved to TV in 1952 and continued to be a ratings winner.

Frank Parker - A golden era vocalist who sang on both the Jack Benny Show, and the Burns and Allen show. He later hosted Bride and Groom, and was a panelist on the quiz show “The Masquerade Party." Another dubious inclusion.

Parkyakarkus - Parkyakarkus is a character played by Harry Einstein. While there are many stage names on the walk.. there are few fictional characters. He is most famous for dying on stage at the Friar's Club Roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in 1958. He also was on radio briefly pretending to be Greek on Eddie Cantor's radio show in the 1930s and played the same role on his own show "Meet Me At Parkys." 

Louella Parsons - A gossipy Hearst writer, her column parlayed into a radio show starting in 1928> she tried again in 1931 then in 1934 won out armed with better sponsorship on "Hollywood Hotel" via CBS. It ran until 1938.  Her feud with another gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper was legendary.

Al Pearce - His first time on air was with the San Francisco Real Estate Glee Club in 1928. he did a little sketch comedy on KFRC-AM, but the The Happy Go Lucky Hour is what hit big. Starting in 1928 it hit big in 1932 and moved to the NBC Blue network running thru 1935. He went on to try many single season shows for CBS into the late 1940s.

Jack Pearl - A vaudeville man who graduated to radio with the Ziegfeld Follies of the Air in 1932. He was also the host of The Lucky Strike Hour from 1932 to 1934 and his own Jack Pearl Show, which ran from  1936 through early 1937.

Drew Pearson - A known muck-raker of the D.C. beltway in his day, he had a 15-minute program twice a week on the Mutual from 1935 to 1936. It expanded to a 30 minute slot on NBC as "Listen America" running from 1939 to 1941 when it was revamped into "Drew Pearson Comments" running from 1941 to 1953.

Harold Peary - A player of bit parts who got lucky playing Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, on  Fibber McGee & Molly. It was spun off in 1941by NBC as "The Great Gildersleeve" with him in the leading role. it lasted another 16 years and 4 feature films.

Joe Penner - See previous post here.

Dick Powell - Most of his work was on film but he also was repeatedly featured on Lux Radio Theatre. In his dozen or so appearances he was in "Gold Diggers" in 1936, "Model Wife" in 1941, "Murder, My Sweet" in 1945 and "To the Ends of the Earth" in 1949.

Basil Rathbone - A Shakespearean actor best known for playing  Sherlock Holmes in 17 films made between and in a radio series "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" running from 1939 to 1946 on NBC Blue.

Quentin Reynolds - He was war correspondent who rose to prominence for covering the Blitz in London in WWII. He also filled in one season for Walter Winchell in 1946.

Grantland Rice - He was a sports writer of some renown, having made his debut on WJZ in 1922 announcing the World Series.  His 1955 book The Tumult and The Shouting was broadcast, as The Grantland Rice Story in fifty-two episodes on NBC inexplicably narrated by Jimmy Powers instead of Mr. Rice.

Irene Rich - Beginning as a star in silent films she also hosted the drama "Dear John", aka The Irene Rich Show.  It ran from 1933 to 1944.

Robert Ripley - See Previous post here.

Roy Rogers - His show broadcast 100 episodes on NBC over six seasons between 1951 and 1957. He even proposed to his first wife on air, met his second wife at a radio station, and while he did license his stage name, he had nothing to do with those nasty restaurants.

Will Rogers - See previous post here.

Mickey Rooney - By far more famous as a film actor, he also starred in a 1948 CBS radio series, "Shorty Bell" as Andy Hardy revisiting the character form the films. He and the original cast also did a syndicated radio version of The Hardy Family in 1949 and 1950.

Lanny Ross - A singer and actor he famously worked on shows like ''Show Boat,'' ''Troubador of the Moon,'' ''The Swift Show'' and his own program ''The Lanny Ross Show." It ran 1941 thru 1949 on CBS with a set also on AFRS.

Charles Ruggles - He was a film actor, appearing in almost 100 different films. He did bit parts in Front Line Theatre, the Roma Wines Show and probably others. His inclusion is dubious.

The Moxie Minute Men

Cocaine used to be pretty popular. I know it was the hip narcotic in the 1980s, but it used to be a pretty common ingredient even in soft drinks. In 1885 Dr. Augustin Thompson quit medicine to sell Moxie a carbonated beverage which contained sassafras, wintergreen, gentian root, sugar and cocaine. If you've ever had Moxie you know it tastes like cough syrup with a hint of mint. But cocaine pretty much guarantees repeat customers. Like many early soft drinks it was supposedly medicinal.  He claimed it was effective against paralysis, imbecility, nervousness, and insomnia. In 1906 the Food and Drug Act outlawed the use of cocaine and it was removed from the recipe. More here.

Despite tasting like crap, Moxie became popular. If you've ever actually tasted Moxie this is almost unbelievable. Cocaine or not it's just nasty tasting. Like many bad products, it rose to prominence through prolific advertising.  Dr. Thompson died in 1903 and the new owner Frank Archer cranked up the ad machine. He advertised in newspapers,  and magazines. He paid for odes to be written to Moxie, and then for song pluggers to sing them. They even paid baseball player Ted Williams to drink it. So when radio came along they adopted the new media like any other.

In 1922 they began driving around a car with a sphinx mounted on the front. People could seek advice from the sphinx who would respond via radio. A radio operator sitting in the car would receive and interpret the message. Re-ly-on bottler described it's responses as "words of wisdom." It was a publicity stunt. Moxie was big on that. I've read reports of a "Moxie Radio Program? but information is scant. But there was also a band. In his book American popular music and its business: From 1900 to 1984, author Russell Sanjek even wrote of a singing group: the Moxie Minute Men.

There isn't a lot of information on this group.  Unlike other sponsored groups like the Clicquot Club Eskimos or the A&P Gypsies they had no recording career that we know of. We know the the Moxie Minute Men were active in 1929 on WEAF-AM. They were mentioned by name in the Indiana Evening Gazette in April and July of that year. They took another stab at radio in the late 1930s. They sponsored the Moxie Hostess Hour carried on NBC. The program aired in 1930, running on at 3:00 PM, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It was actually only 15 minutes long.  It was bumped up to 4:00 PM in July. It is often the case that the use of  "hour" in program names is farcical. But for this discrepancy it was sometimes listed as the Moxie Hostess Program. The program appears in NBC schedules from march through July of that year. It is possible that it stretches back into 1929 and that it's where the Moxie Minute Men originate, or they are separate, unrelated stabs at radio land during their worst sales decline.

Enna Jettick Shoes and Songbook

Enna Jettick made shoes. Sir Harry Lauder and 3 other unidentified singers performed on the program "Enna Jettick Melodies" which aired on WJZ, and WEAF back in 1930. It was carried by the NBC Blue Network to 44 stations across America from her studio at 711 5th Avenue on Manhattan. It was carried from there by wire to KFJ in Los Angeles to the rest of the Red network. the program started as early as 1929. In the Whites radio log for that year they advertise a dance program on WLW Cincinnati, the WJZ program but not the WEAF Program.

Though ostensibly carried on 44 stations, this songbook lists only those stations carrying their Tuesday evening program: WEAF, WEEI, WJAR, WTAG, WCSH, WFI, WRC, WGY, WGR, WCAE, WDAF, WTAM, WFJC, WWJ, WSAI, WIBO, KSD, WHO, WOW, and WOC.  That's essentially the whole NBC Blue Network. Meaning that the Sunday show was on the Red network. they alternated days and networks... how novel. They also appear to have advertised on a Durium record in 1932.

Enna Jettick survived the Great depression, but got out of radio. They donated some of property to Cuayuga county and which became Emerson park in 1944. It was named for Jettick owner Fred Emerson. Part of the property was already a park and interestingly the existing carousel was purchased by Hershey and is presently at Hershey Park down in Hershey, PA.  The company was still advertising their shoes in 1951. I have scanned all 50 pages of the songbook, ads sheet music and all.

YOU CAN GET ALL 57 MB

HERE

The Shinola Merrymakers

Shinola was a brand of shoe polish that was sold in the 1930s. It was a product of the Shinola-Bixby Corporation. While no longer made, it is immortalized in the idiom "Don't know shit from Shinola."Like other popular brands of the era, they advertised on the radio and briefly, they sponsored a program. This is a wholly  unknown and unrecorded radio orchestra snatched from the jaws of utter obscurity. I first found a note here, and there and slowly began to piece it together. The act was on air for almost exactly one year; March of 1926 through March of 1927.

One paper has them on KSD-AM St. Louis in 1926. The Buffalo express has them on WJAR-AM in Providence at 8:00 PM on Wednesday May 26th 1926.  The Chatham Courier lists them on WSAI-AM, Cincinnati and WTAG-AM Worcester both at 8:00 PM on a Wednesday of 1926. Even a layperson would know that clearly their program was syndicated after finding these scant references.

The total list of stations included all of the above stations and also WEEI-AM, Boston, MA; WCAE-AM Pittsburgh; WWJ-AM, Detroit, MI; WCCO-AM, Minneapolis, MN; WOC-AM, and Davenport, IA. The NBC radio network launched formally on November 15th, 1926. That's hwo they ended up on all these stations. They had a show on WEAF, and in early network radio, anything on the originating station could get syndicated. One paper made a crucial link noting their Bixby Polish Co. sponsorship. Also that they are accompanied by George hamilton Green they performed on WEAF-AM  Wednesday evenings. That whole quote is as follows:

"These concerts are presented by the Shinola Bixby Polish Co., with the Shinola Merry Makers. Mr. Green plays the Leedy xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, harpaphone, chimes and bells and the Leedy Mfg. Co. is featuring the Shinola concerts in its advertising."

That's what led me to a dissertation by one Ryan Lewis Green. It runs over 600 pages and is so detailed I dare not give it a fleeting quote. I just recommend you read it in it's entirely [link here] and I'll quote at legnth here the relevant passage:

"By 1926, Joe Green’s Marimba Band was already quite well-known “to the air folks” on the Eveready Battery Vaudeville Hour that broadcast weekly from 9:00-10:00 p.m.; however, it was the Shinola Merry-Makers radio show that truly marked the Green Brothers successful switch to radio. The Shinola Merry-Makers were the house orchestra for radio broadcasts sponsored by the Shinola Bixby Polish Corporation, a group that was essentially the Green Brothers Novelty Band. By the end of March 1926, “George Hamilton Green and his orchestra” could be heard every Wednesday evening from 8:00-8:30 p.m. on a long list of stations on the east coast and into the Midwest..."

Joe Green was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1892. So he was  34 years old by the time the Shinola Merrymakers Joe played the xylophone, drums and timpani. Long before Shinola, he was playing Sousa on Victor Recordings. I own a few later diss recorded as Green Brothers Novelty Marimba with his brother George. More here.

The Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra

Today B.F. Goodrich is just a brand of tires marketed by the French-based company Michelin. The original Goodrich was an all-American company founded in 1870 in Akron, Ohio. back then, B.F. Goodrich was also a man, Benjamin Franklin Goodrich. Goodrich died at the age of 46, in 1888.  So by the time the company was advertising on radio, he had nothing to do with it except for his surname... which continues to be used to this day.

He didn't live to see it but the Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra bore his name into broadcasting.   It was a musical variety radio show. The band was actually the Joseph Knecht's Orchestra aka The Waldorf Astoria Dance Orchestra. At the Waldorf, it was directed by Joseph Knecht from approximately 1908 to 1925. The chronology is a bit uncertain. The Waldorf Astoria Dance Orchestra was broadcasting on WEAF-AM from the Rose Room at the hotel before the Goodrich Variety Program ever aired. The Washington Post wrote of a performance in February 1923, they were doing performances on WJZ-AM before that. But all catalogs note he departed in 1925, that's the same time they began their sponsorship from Goodrich. Nonetheless he is definitely on record with the band via Victor Records. The earliest of these was 1917, the latest of those were recorded in 1927.  I assume the oft-given 1925 date is wrong. At the very least his performance affiliation long outlasted his on air. More here.

The staff crooner, Joe White had also been on WEAF-AM since at least 1923. White had begun as a masked character with a silver aluminum Zorro-mask. It was campy but it was popular. In 1925 they began their weekly broadcasts as The Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra, sometimes billed as The Goodrich Silvertown Cord Orchestra.The Orchestra's theme music was "Her Waltz" by Arthur Johnston. The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio states they also were called the Silvertown Zippers, The Goodrich Zippers and The Silvertown Quartet.  This one-hour Thursday night format lasted until 1926 after the formation of NBC. NBC moved them to Wednesdays.

They stayed on Wednesday nights into 1928. That ensemble was focused on a smaller banjo-oriented group which was apparently the aforementioned Zippers. By then there syndicated on the NBC network, at the time that included WEEI, WEAF, WCCO, WGN, WCAE, WJAR, WTAG, KSD, WOC, WGR, WFI, WWJ, WSM, and WADC. Rolfe was an odd character, a film-maker who quit the biz after 5 years and then went into vaudeville. Before he resurrected the Zippers for Goodrich he'd run another group, B.A. Rolfe and his Lucky Strike Orchestra. He recorded with them for Edison in 1928.

The book Sold on Radio by Jim Cox notes that after the Silvertown Zippers, Goodrich was hands-off with radio for a long time. They Sponsored one more program in 1930 "Uncle Abe And David" (also on NBC.)  Then they stayed out of radioland for 15 years.  In 1945 they picked up the sponsorship of "Detect And Collect" a zany quiz show that had just moved from CBS to ABC. It lasted one year and they went back to tires.

The Clicquot Club Eskimos

The Clicquot Club Beverage Company was bought and dissolved by Cott Beverages in 1960, then Cott by Canada Dry in 1965. Nobody born after that seems to remember who they were.  They were founded in 1881, in Millis, MA by Henry Millis with a little family money. The name "Clicquot" probably was trying to absorb some of the respect and brand recognition that the French champagne Veuve Clicquot already had. But the Clicquot Club Beverage Co focused initially on the more pedestrian hard cider, but branched out into ginger ale, root beer and other soft drinks. Millis sold off the company in 1901. In 1938 the company became the first to sell its beverages in a can. We know them at Arcane Radio trivia because they sponsored a radio show in the 1920s. More here.

Since at least 1913 The Clicquot Club Beverage Co. has used a cherubic cartoon Eskimo boy as their mascot. It was really just a Caucasian Rockefeller painting-looking kid in a furry parka but that was enough to work in Massachusetts apparently.They used other advertising with random women, patriotic eagles, bucolic scenes and at one point, deriding the ingredients of their competitors. They were aggressive advertisers. But in that era advertising was not permitted on the radio, but sponsorships were.

The Clicquot Club Beverage Co. ended up with a variety show on WEAF hosted by Harry Reser. WEAF production manager George Podeyn to approach the Clicquot company about sponsoring a band led by Reser. Podeyn envisioned it as a gimmicky banjo orchestra. A two-sided color advertisement itemized the banjos as follows: Paramount tenor banjo, two Paramount Plectrum banjos, Paramount Melody banjo, Paramount B-Flat Melody banjo,saxophone, Piano, Tuba Bass, Drums, and Paramount tenor harps. You might have guessed already, but they had a sponsorship from Paramount banjos.

It's hard to get firm dates but the first program could have been as early as 1923 or as late as 1925. According to one source  It launched on January 23rd 1933,on the NBC Blue Network, Mondays at 8pm and held that slot until that July. Then went off air for two years. It returned December 21, 1935 but this time on CBS running on Saturdays at 8pm. Continuing on CBS until January 4, 1936 when it returned to NBC running Sundays at 3pm finally ending on April 12 of that year.This does line up nicely with the discography, but I can find no citation for this history.

Whether it started in 1925 or 1923, Reser had already been performing banjo music on WEAF for a few years to mixed success. So maybe it was the banjo orchestra, or maybe it was the brand recognition, but the Clicquot Club Eskimos were signed to Columbia records and began releasing 78s in 1926. The first of these was recorded on 12/24/1925. Their discography included over 50 sides, the last of which were recorded on 02/11/1931. (Some of these were later re-released on Perfect, Banner, Conqueror, Regal and other labels.) For this reason I doubt that the program ran much later than 1931, that it's full duration was at least  6 years. You can see their discography here. Sometimes Harry led the same band under the name the "Goodrich Zippers."

Transcription Mystery Disc #121

It is rare that I Google a brand of acetate recording disc and find nothing. This is a 10-Inch 78 rpm recoding on an acetate. It starts at the outer edge.  The song is clearly labeled but the artist was not. However it came in a batch of other mixed acetates that seem to have a common origin in a collection of Helen Olheim demos. Others in the lot are dated to 1935 and 1936. She studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester in 1925 so these were recorded after she graduated. A couple are labeled clearly for WJZ and WEAF.  This may have been recorded in a radio studio, but the mix of this specific side makes me doubt that.  I purchased them near Rochester and I suspect they may have come directly from her or her families collection.This one contains only vocals with piano accompaniment.There are pauses in the playing and singing that make me think she's pulling double duty.

But the brand of blank, Tonex is totally  unknown to me. The stroboscope on the label makes me think it might have had some kind of audiophile marketing.  The manufacturer is listed as "OH &A Selmer Inc. Elkhart, Indiana U.S.A."  that I found a little bit about. In a February 1967 issue of billboard I found an article on H&A Selmer Inc. It was a write up for an electric saxophone. They were described as making a wide variety of wind instruments by company president Jack F. Fedderson. In fact Their Bundy model clarinets are said to be among the best selling in the world.

Alexandre was one of 16 siblings, several of which were musicians, most notably Henri-Chery, Charles-Emile and Alexandre-Gabriel.   Henri and Alexandre were both clarinetists. By 1890 Henri was a maker of clarinet reeds. In 1895, at the age of 31,  Alexandre came to America and performed with a number of orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the above mentioned the New York Philharmonic. Around 1900 he opened a retail musical instrument store on Third Avenue in Manhattan.  It was founded as H&A Selmer Inc. in 1904. If you didn't guess, the H and the A stand for Henri and Alexandre. In 1918 Alexandre returned to France and left the American side of the business in the hands of one of his students, George Bundy. You can read a very detailed biography here that skips acetates entirely.

Their Elkhart plant was built in 1927. In the 1950s they began making brass instruments in addition to woodwinds.They made bassoons, Clarinets, trumpets, oboes, trombones, fluets, and saxophones. They had over 200 different models of just mouth pieces. Benny Goodman played a Selmer. John Coltrane played a Selmer. Coltrane actually played a Mark VI which was assembled in Elkhart, IN.  Thsi is all very interesting.. but when did they start making acetates?  Well I found an ad in the June 1943 issue of Popular Science that included one crucial detail...

"Glass recording discs are the latest answer supplied by the phonograph industry to shortages of critical details. The new disks are made on a transparent base of ordinary glass with a coating of slow-burning ethyl acetate.  They were developed by H&A Selmer of Elkhart Indiana."

So we know for certain that they were making glass acetates by 1943. It's reasonable to think they were already making standard aluminum core blanks before that, perhaps even in the mid 1930s. By inference I'll assume the Tonex blanks date similarly to the others.  it's not certain, but there is enough context to corroborate at least that inference. I do have one lingering question.  Why is there an "O" in the company name on the acetate?